Spoilers

“Divine Recall”

The reign of Mayor Rachel Harris is the major focus of this episode, as an old soft porn tape she made when she was 21 resurfaces, presenting the church an opportunity to call for censure against Rachel.

Rachel’s secret affair with Kenny comes out as well, leading to some conflict between Kenny and Jimmy.

Father Barrett was leading the charge against Rachel on grounds that she lacked the moral compass to be an effective leader. The show is able to present every angle of a situation so you can see where everyone’s motive was coming from.

And the episode had a surprise in store. With Rachel censured, the ranking member of the City Council would become mayor and that was Howard Buss.

Howard, who has been suffering with Alzheimer’s Disease, does not seem the type to take the reigns of the mayor’s office, but Howard was excited to fill the position until a special election for the position.

Lots of big ideas in this episode and everything fit nicely together as the storyline of Rachel Harris, mayor, takes a turn. My memory was that this story is never quite fully resolved, but maybe I am mistaken. I believe that I’ll have to move the viewing over to Amazon Prime since Picket Fences looks to be leaving Hulu as of tomorrow.

Spoilers

“Supreme Courting”

This was one of my lower level Picket Fences episodes so far in this rewatch. It was Valentine’s Day in Rome and love takes a hit.

Carter uses the Cyrano de Bergerac method to help him with a date with the beautiful woman. He also slipped some tequila into her drink. When he told her the truth, she felt betrayed, rightfully, I think.

She went and wanted him charged with rape, which, again, I feel she had a case. However, Judge Bone dismissed the case and chastised them for bringing it, wasting his time. This section of this show did not age well.

Zack got a girlfriend and got in trouble by rubbing her breasts when they went to kiss. The other boys of 4th grade egged him on. Zack and the girl got caught and Zack wound up suspended for a week.

Kimberly had a boyfriend who was anxious about kissing her because she had a reputation. He was nervous about being accused of sexual harrassment.

This episode was about an important issue that felt tossed into a Valentine’s Day episode.

Spoilers

“Abominable Snowman”

Two stories, both trending toward tragedy, intertwined in a sad, yet joyous end in this solid episode that deals with two major issues.

Alzheimer’s Disease is a horrendous disease that robs victims of their minds and their dignity. Howard Buss was diagnosed with this affliction in season one.

Also in season one, we met Frank the Potato Man, and dealt with the city of Rome’s prejudice against the poor and homeless. Frank is back and hoping to find somewhere to live during the frigid winter months. Wambaugh petitions the city to build a shelter.

Howard’s son had a massive heart attack. Jill told Howard that his son required a heart transplant or he would die within weeks. Howard, faced with the prospect of slowly declining from the Alzheimer’s, wanted to donate his own heart to his son, effectively letting himself die.

Once again, Judge Henry Bone is placed in a seemingly unfathomable situation, requiring him to make decisions over the life and death of characters in the show.

Unfortunately, Frank the Potato Man froze to death before the ruling was given. Fortunately, Frank was a match for the heart and was an organ donor and his death saved Howard’s son.

Judge Bone had ruled that the hospital could not assist in Howard’s death and that the town had to build a shelter, both very ironic considering what was about to be revealed.

The scene of Maxine and Jimmy in the hospital waiting room after Maxine had found and brought Frank in was so sad. Beautiful writing. Maxine mentioned how there was no one here to cry for Frank, and Jimmy said that there was, meaning Maxine. It was a lovely and heart-breaking scene.

This is Picket Fences at its best. Dealing with timely issues with two tight stories that end up coming together. Wonderful writing. It also starts the elevation, once again, of the character of Howard Buss who will become more important as the season goes on.

Alan Arkin guest starred as a lawyer.

Spoilers

“Remote Control”

Picket Fences is no fire at this moment.

Middle of season two really took this show into the stratosphere. Season one was really more of self-contained episodes that happened in the city of Rome, Wisconsin. They referenced them throughout, but there was not any true running storylines.

In season two, they still had the major topics, but they also have storylines that carried across the whole series. Here, the story from “Guns ‘R’ Us” is continued as Timmy, who shot Matthew, is up for trial. Actually, he was up for sentencing because he plead guilty for attempted murder to drop other charges.

Meanwhile, the mayor Rachel continued her steps to crash down on human rights to make the town safer. They wanted to fingerprint the entire town as well as having random auto stops. Jimmy refused to go against the constitution and …

Rachel fired him.

They went to court and Judge Bone upheld the firing (which I was surprised about) but Jimmy would not give up his badge setting up a tense encounter with everyone.

At the end, of course, Jimmy got his job back and Timmy was sent off to serve his sentence.

The only thing I was a little disappointed with was how there was no follow up to last week’s sinister ending with Zack and the gun. They mentioned how Zack was having trouble dealing with seeing his brother’s shooting, but nothing like that last seen last week.

Matthew is slowly improving too, which started with a funny scene at the beginning with Matthew being able to pee on his own.

Spoilers

“Guns ‘R’ Us”

Honestly, there has never been a more sinister ending to this show than the end of this one. Watching Zack methodically find the key to his father’s gun drawer and then take it from the drawer, point it into the air and make a shooting sound. He did it with a blank expression and a coldness that we have never seen in Zack. It was chilling.

Things escalated big time. It started with Matthew being bullied by some high schoolers. He builds a potato gun in order to dent the bully’s car. Instead, it turned out the potato gun was more of a canon and the car crashed, breaking the bully’s back.

Matthew is arrested, but gets a lighter sentence. Then, the bully’s brother shows up at the school with a handgun and shoots Matthew.

Matthew is rushed to surgery and his life is saved, but he was potentially paralyzed. While Jimmy was out with Matthew, Maxine became the acting sheriff and started some drastic measures about the proliferation of hand guns in the high school in Rome.

This is such a good episode with so much tension. There was also some conflict with Wambaugh and Kimberly which made perfect sense. This was great writing with some stellar acting from everyone on the cast. It was truly some great TV.

Spoilers

“Paging Dr. God”

Picket Fences returns to the world of religious freedom with the episode “Paging Dr. God.” This time, the show looks at Christian Scientists and their belief that prayer is a better option than medicine.

A pregnant woman starts choking at a restaurant and Jill helps her. She then started going into labor. Jill wants to take her to the hospital, but the husband says that going to the hospital is against their religion.

Jill took her anyway and helped the baby be born. The woman had an attack during the birth. Her husband refused her treatment on her brain and they brought in Judge Bone a second time. The first, he ruled that saving the baby superseded the religion. This time, he said they could not operate on the woman.

Jill did it anyway.

Meanwhile, Zack wants to become Jewish. His teacher had talked about Judaism and Zack liked some of the ideals of the religion. This lead to the school board asking questions about Zack’s teacher.

As always, the religions are presented and it feels like everybody was right. It presented an impossible situation for Henry Bone to decide.

Spoilers

“Cross Examinations”

“Strangers”

“Blue Christmas”

I went to Hulu tonight, just browsing some of the other films and shows that the streaming service offered when I saw something that shocked me.

On the icon of Picket Fences was a little notice in the upper left hand corner that said “exp. Fri.”

I couldn’t believe it. I just discovered Picket Fences was available on Hulu about a month or so ago. I was so excited because I had not been able to see these episodes in literal decades. I decided to do the Picket Fences DailyView Re-watch during November, making sure to watch at least one episode for every day. I was up to the sixth episode of the second season.

I did not know what to do, so tonight I started a binge to try and get through as many as I could before it went away off Hulu.

I watched three episodes in a row of Christmas in Rome. One of them was one of my favorite episodes, one I think of every time Christmas comes around, any time I hear the song ‘Blue Christmas.’ Watching Carter and his brother sing the song at the end of the episode after their mother died. It is a beautiful scene that was as sad of a scene as the show has ever had.

As I was watching this run of episodes tonight, I discovered something else. The whole four seasons of Picket Fences were on Amazon Prime. I did not think that it was on Prime, but there it was. All four seasons.

So the plans that I had to ramp up the re-watch in high gear before the Hulu episodes expire on Friday are now out of the window. When Hulu gets rid of the show, I will continue watching it on Prime.

By the way, the other two episodes in this rush included a potential virgin birth and a man who killed his brother because of his facial agnosia. Kimberly’s friend was arrested for having LSD in her locker and she faced charges as a drug dealer. At the end of e9, Littleton had to rescind a confession on made up grounds to prevent the girl from going to federal prison for ten years. Judge Bone delivered a scathing lecture to the girl about how all these good people were forced to do things against their ethics because of her and that it was nothing to celebrate. It was a powerful moment for Henry who has had a couple of questionable moments this season.

These were three excellent episodes in a row, all taking place around the holidays.

For now, I will continue on Hulu. Thankfully, I have an option when its gone.

Spoilers

“Dairy Queen”

Breasts become a handful in Rome, Wisconsin.

The city hires a model to promote milk using her sexual nature. Turned out, she was being abused by her husband. She was also a woman pulled over for speeding years before by Jimmy.

This whole storyline was designed to cause some issues in the marriage of Jimmy and Jill, but that just did not work for me. I had little concern with the model’s storyline. Her husband did punch a cow and knocked it out, but otherwise the abusive husband story was not

Kimberly’s story was about breasts as well. She ran an experiment by wearing falsies and realized she received more attention with bigger breasts than she did before. This led to her beginning to think about the possibility of getting breast implants.

This, of course, freaked Jill out, who was already having some issues with Jimmy. Kimberly called in Lydia for another opinion.

This episode did not feel like much of anything to me. The story with the model and her abusive husband was too sparse to be worthwhile and it did not feel organic.

It also seems as if the show has completely forgotten the entire Douglas Wambaugh is a rotten person arc from two episodes ago. He was here backing the abused model and no one even made any references to that apparently character defining moment.

Sounds as if we are gearing up for the next Thanksgiving episode, which was mentioned a couple of times during this show.

Spoilers

“The Dancing Bandit”

Marlee Matlin guest starred on Picket Fences as Laurie Bey, aka The Dancing Bandit. Laurie was a deaf woman who would rob banks, and then send the money that she steals to worthy charities in the area. The old Robin Hood mentality. The deaf woman would end each bank job with a dance.

She had a whole gang of experts helping her along the way, including prince Humperdinck himself, Chris Sarandon, who played her husband. The Dancing Bandit Gang were shown to be extremely intelligent and able to pull off remarkable complicated plans, fooling the local police and the FBI.

However, it appeared that Laurie’s luck had run out when she came to Rome, Wisconsin. She wound up shot in the back by Jimmy when she had tried to escape.

Thing was, Laurie had already charmed Jimmy’s son Zach, who was one of the hostages during her attempted bank robbery. Laurie was impressed that Zach knew some sign language and kept calling him cute.

This classic episode really displayed how the intelligence of Matlin’s character and her gang kept them several steps ahead of the FBI and everyone else. That was very impressive and was a cool thing to show. At times, because of their disability, some deaf people are perceived to be less intelligent than others, but there is no stereotype going on here.

Marlee Matlin was charming as could be in this role, a role that she will return to later in the series. She received an Emmy nomination for this episode.

The Dancing Bandit is an excellent episode of Picket Fences.

Spoilers

“Under the Influence”

Two storylines collide, both dealing with the influence over people. Alcohol and manipulation by a therapist. Well, he was not a therapist at the time.

I hated that character of Danny. I hated watching what he was doing to Maxine. Tearing her down, preying on her insecurities and trying to isolate her from her friends and co-workers. Danny was a grade A jerk.

He had Maxine so messed up that she allowed a drunk driver go. The driver was just a few blocks away from her house and Maxine thought it would be okay, but the driver ran a stop sign and crashed into another driver, putting him into a wheelchair. Maxine told the drunk driver to go into her house and wait.

The rest of the episode focused on Douglas Wambaugh. The drunk driver called Wambaugh who instructed her to have some scotch immediately.

The episode showed how slimy Doug can be. He was doing all kinds of things that were borderline criminal to try and win his case. The show then seemed to show Douglas changing his tune. He helped the drunk driver plead the case out (instead of going to trial). Though it looked as if Douglas had learned his lesson and turned over a new leaf, he was actually setting up a lawsuit against the city for the guy in the wheelchair. It was a marvelously horrific lawyer trick that sent Wambaugh into a jail cell for contempt.

Maxine was able to pull herself away from Danny, finally seeing how his manipulations were affecting her, thanks to Kenny and Jill.

There are still several pieces of info dropped. Kenny and the new mayor are sleeping together, making office politics a new thing.

Spoilers

“Unlawful Entries”

I remember when this episode first aired… I hated… just hated Danny Shreve, the therapist who had claimed to be in love with his former patient, Maxine. Maxine had him arrested last episode for crossing the line and taking advantage of his position as therapist.

This episode found him doing his best to get Maxine to drop the charges, and he was clearly manipulating her, and I loved Maxine and I hated him for what he was doing.

At the end of the episode with Danny and Maxine in bed together seemed so sinister that I hated him once again.

The rest of the episode was quite disgusting. They had a case where a male was raped by a female and they way he was treated as a victim was just appalling. I know the idea was to highlight how rape victims are treated by the system, but listening to Douglas Wambaugh, one of my favorite characters, spout off the platitudes of the ridiculous statements used in rape cases was sickening. Watching Henry Bone’s reactions were also obscene. Nothing spoke more than to see John Littleton’s eyes being adverted in shame, avoiding the gaze of the victim.

The victim was played by Alan Ruck, the actor from Spin City and Ferris Buhler’s Day Off. He played the anger and embarrassment with such a heart-breaking pain.

This episode also found the debut of a character in Picket Fences called Rachel Harris. Played by Leigh Taylor-Young, this is a character who fumbled into the mayor’s office after Bill Pugen exploded last episode. She has a huge role moving forward.

Overall, this episode was more of a set-up for stories for the future.

Spoilers

“Duty Free Rome”

Last episode, I wondered if it was the episode where Bill Pugen spontaneously combusted. It wasn’t.

It was this episode.

This was an absolute shock when I first saw this episode back in the 1990s. I couldn’t believe that a serious TV show had a character die by spontaneously combusting. And then to treat it like that was a truth.

I have always enjoyed the mysterious things, and I remember having some knowledge of spontaneous combustion, but to see it used in the show like this, well, it was a shock.

It also started the long running gag of Wambaugh instructing his clients that they shouldn’t tell him the whole truth. The idea that a client telling their lawyer the truth could hamstring the lawyer is something that I have seen elsewhere (The Practice and Boston Legal spring o mind.. both David E. Kelley shows) but I think this is where it originated.

The story with Maxine and her therapist started in this episode and, if I recall, gets worse for Maxine before it gets better.

There was also the religious argument going on. A couple who both have a genetic marker for a terrible birth defect are scared to have sex and the church will not allow them to use birth control without it being considered a sin. Roy Dotrice joined the cast as Father Gary Barrett. He would be involved with several religious fights in Rome over the series.

Spoilers

“Turpitude”

What can be great about rewatches like this, I haven’t seen these Picket fences episodes in a long time and I may not necessarily remember the ending. So while I remember this episode very well, I was not remembering exactly how it wrapped up and that is cool.

I remember the carjacking episode, where Mayor Bill Pugen shot his carjacker after the man had dropped the knife. The mayor shot him because the man had threatened to come back after his jail time and get Pugen and his family. Perfectly understandable.

However, Jimmy saw it as vigilantism (which it is, by the way) and he was determined to uphold the law, even if everybody was telling him he shouldn’t.

This was also the episode where Don Cheadle came to Rome.

Don Cheadle is one of my favorite actors, and that love started in Rome as Cheadle joined the cast as District Attorney John Littleton and immediately gets thrown into the dep end by Jimmy and this unpopular decision.

Cheadle takes this role that had been so uncertain over the first year of the show and truly makes it his. Every time he asked anyone listening “Who is this man?” in reference to Douglas Wambaugh, I could’ve died.

As I said, I was not sure what way the court decision would go, and I kind of thought there would not be a verdict because of the whole spontaneous combustion story, but that is not in this episode.

So I was surprised when Pugen was found guilty. This show was never afraid to go for the big swings.

Spoilers

“The Lullaby League”

The first season finale of Picket Fences was a memorable episode. Guest star Della Reece appears as one of the great Blues singers known as Naomi Grand. She was performing in Rome and Zach won a contest to play with her.

When the night of the concert came, just after they finished their scat, Naomi collapsed on stage. Jill diagnoses liver failure and claimed she was going to die without a experimental treatment, the use of a pig’s live as a stopgap measure until a human liver could be found.

The surgery was a success, but when Naomi awoke, she was horrified by the idea that a pig organ was inside her body and demanded that they take it out. Of course, Jill refused and that meant that we got to hear those wonderful words… “Douglas Wambaugh for the pig woman!”

Meanwhile, Maxine and Kenny pulled over a speeder who was in labor and ready to give birth. Maxine helped give birth even with the baby being a birch.

Turned out though that the mother was wanted as an accessory to a bank robbery and she took off afterwards. But not before she left the baby with Wambaugh with instructions to give the baby to Maxine.

Maxine wanted no part of the baby at first, but the little girl warmed Maxine’s heart and before long, Maxine was anxiously trying to adopt her.

Sadly, Maxine’s heart was broken as the mother turned herself in and gave testimony against the bank robber so she could keep the baby.

These were two fairly emotional stories contained in a single episode. The pig liver story was more like the weird stories of Rome, whereas the baby was the story to dive into our characters hearts and minds.

It was a strong episode to finish off an exceptional first season. There were no flops during this season, with even the lowest episodes on my list being very enjoyable.

Spoilers

“Sugar and Spice”

Kimberly and her best friend kiss, experimenting and stir up all kinds of trouble.

Kenny and Maxine compete for the job of under sheriff and stir up all kinds of trouble.

Jimmy makes some mistakes when speaking with Maxine about the position and stirs up all kind of trouble.

Poor Jimmy just does not see things coming. He is pretty old fashioned when it comes to a lot of things, but when he told Maxine that he did not think she would be accepted as under sheriff because of the other male deputies, he really put his foot in it.

His heart was in the right place. He did not intend to commit sexual discrimination even though that was exactly what he had done. He was trying to protect her from a job that he did not think she was ready for. He just went about it in the wrong way.

Of course, Maxine did not react well to not getting the job at first either. Her immediate outburst was disrespectful to Kenny, no matter what she said later. It showed that Jimmy was right that she was not ready for the position, even though he went about it in the wrong manner.

I think the show did a great job with the Kimberly sexual confusion story angle. This felt real and made a lot of sense, even if it were uncomfortable to watch at times. Jimmy, Jill and Lydia reacted in all sorts of ways though, in the end, Kimberly seemed to appreciate what they had done. They sort of lucked into it.

Oh, and Matthew had to fight an older bully to protect Zach. Jimmy had found out and gave his son some pointers and Jimmy’s shock and joy when he discovered that Matthew had won the fight was as funny as Jill’s outcry over him knowing and letting Matthew do it. It was a funny little C-level story.

We looked quite a bit at Jimmy again this episode, as he interacted with his real children and his two deputies that he thinks of as his children. Maxine was mad at Jimmy, but she’ll get over it.